


The Lovers

by Cruciferous_Jex



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 07:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21316612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cruciferous_Jex/pseuds/Cruciferous_Jex
Summary: A short drabble in which Hordak recieves a Tarot reading from a new cadet. Yes it's the Rider-Waite deck. No I don't know where she got it. It was yeeted through a portal like Adora,  shhh. Shhhhhh.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 185





	The Lovers

Toadie was, well, a toad.

Or at the very least looked like one. She was a new recruit to the Horde - having joined willingly for a chance at a life better than that of a swamp dweller. Not that she minded mud. In fact she rolled in it whenever possible. But Toadie wanted to see Etheria, and the Horde seemed her best passage to such a life.

Having come from a long line of fortune tellers, Toadie of course brought her deck of prognostication cards from home. Magical items were not allowed in the Horde, but her cards were not inherently magic. It was all in the interpretation after all. No magic required.

Just to be safe she'd told them they were just a game. 

Soon word got around and Toadie found her services much in demand, most especially by Force Captain Scorpia, her immediate superior, who had laid a grey ration bar before her as payment. 

The sixth payment this week.

"This...I mean this..." Toadie gestured to the spread. A man stealing seven swords, three swords piercing a heart, a woman sobbing in bed before nine swords hung on a wall. "This... still doesn't look good for a love reading. I'm sorry. "

Scorpia bit her lip. "Ummm... maybe...try flipping one more card?" she asked hopefully. 

Toadie nodded, impatiently slapping one more card down on the table. A queen on a throne holding a single sword. Reversed.

"Oh sweetie," Toadie said softly. 

"Just - maybe just- "

Toadie slapped two more cards down. A woman with a blindfold and arms bound, standing before eight swords, a man dead on the ground with ten in his back. 

"Not looking good, Scorpia, sir."

"Oh you don't have to call me sir, I -" Scorpia began, but stopped when her lower lip began to quiver. Tears filled her eyes. "Okay, um -" she said. Laughed uneasily. Gathered herself. "Try again tomorrow?"

Toadie shrugged. "Keep bringing grey bars, I'll keep reading your cards. But I mean...."

Scorpia's eyes were wide. Wet.

Toadie sighed. She didn't have the heart. "See you tomorrow, Scorpia."

"Right. Okay. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day!" Scorpia walked out of the armory storeroom with shoulders slumped, but immediately straightened when she saw someone just outside the door. "Lord Hordak! Sir! I-"

Scorpia glanced back at Toadie, her eyes wide with panic for her. Toadie tried gathering her cards as fast as possible but only made a mess of them. It was too late, Hordak had brushed past Scorpia and into the room to see Toadie, her hands spread over the cards in a futile attempt to cover them.

"What is the meaning of this?" Hordak asked softly. 

Toadie's heart skipped a beat. She swallowed hard. "It's - it's - just a game, Lord Hordak, sir."

"Then why was Force Captain Scorpia crying?"

"Uhhh...she...lost?"

Hordak raised an eyebrow at her. God, he was so intimidatingly tall. Toadie had never been this close to him. 

"Do not lie to me, cadet."

"I'm...I...apologize, sir. They are... they're fortune telling cards, sir. They belonged to my mother, I brought them from home." She bowed her head. "I'm sorry for my obfuscation. Punish me as you see fit, sir."

Hordak stared at her so hard she thought she might melt. But he did not speak. His gaze fell to the cards, studying them. He looked thoughtful. And...tired, somehow. She knew well the look of someone who'd exhausted every other option, but his glowing red eyes frightened her.

"I'll remove them at once, sir."

"Remain as you are."

Hordak took a deep breath. Took hold of the chair Scorpia had been sitting in. Toadie winced, certain he was going to throw it at her - she'd heard tales of his punishments - but he merely stepped before it, and sat down.

"Proceed," he said, folding his hands on the table. 

***

Toadie could barely speak. She had - well, a frog in her throat.

"You, uh..." she began. She winced. "There must be payment. Sir."

"Payment?" he asked, taken aback.

"Yes. Sir. You must cross my palm with ... well ... something."

He raised an eyebrow. Considered this. After a moment he reached somewhere and produced a small green crystal, which he set on the table before her.

"Wow," she said softly, picking it up. "Usually it's ration bars, but this will do nicely. Thank you." 

He nodded.

She picked up the deck and began to shuffle. "What is your question?"

Something crossed his face. She found his expressions hard to read, but if she was right, it was ... unease.

"You don't have to say it out loud," she said quickly, handing him the deck. "Just think of it while you shuffle the cards."

"...shuffle?"

"As I was doing a moment ago."

He hesitated. He split the cards in two and faced them towards each other, then paused, seemingly unsure how to do this. 

"Or just cut them. Like...rearrange them. It's more important that you think of your question as you do it."

Hordak took a silent moment and arranged the cards in three piles and stacked them in the opposite order he'd split them.

"Is that adequate?"

"That will do, yes. Now um..." Toadie began, unsure how to put this. "They - I can't - promise they'll give you the answer you are hoping for. In fact you may not like what they have to say at all. But I just - I beg you, sir - don't, um... don't shoot the messenger. Sir."

Toadie surreptitiously glanced at the guns on the wall of the armor. 

"You have my word."

"Okay. Okay good. If you're ready...?"

He nodded.

"Okay. Here we go."

Toadie flipped the first card. Her eyes widened. 

The Lovers.

She glanced up at Hordak. He also looked surprised, but quickly went back to impassive. Hordak had a LOVER? Who? Who in the world?

"So there was ... someone. Um. Important to you. In the recent past?"

She glanced up at him for confirmation which he did not give. 

She flipped another card. A queen holding a cup, then another, a man and a woman holding a cup between them. A third, a king with a sword.

"Wow," she said softly. "Sir can I um...may I speak ... freely?"

He nodded, leaning forward slightly.

"This was, um ... a meeting of equals. A very good and ... and true ... love, sir. Um. Enduring. Or .. or should have been?"

Hordak did not reply. 

She flipped another card. The three of swords - three swords piercing a heart. 

"It ended abruptly? Very painfully ... yes. It's been troubling you greatly," she said, flipping the woman crying before the swords on the wall. "Do you ... do you want me to inquire why? Sir?" she whispered. 

He glanced at her. 

"Proceed," he said, but his voice sounded different. Slightly...broken. 

Toadie gathered up the cards and put them back in the deck. Shuffled. She could shuffle very fast. Hordak watched her hands, tilting his head with slight interest. 

"Why did they leave?" she asked, and flipped the cards out on the table. 

Eight wands flying through the air. The man and woman holding the cup between them. The queen holding a sword, placed upside down. An exploding tower with a man and woman falling from it. Then a woman and child departing in a boat, in which also stood six swords. 

Toadie furrowed her brow. 

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sir I...from this... it seems to say they-"

"She," he corrected softly.

"She didn't want to leave. It was ... I mean I'd almost say it was forced on her. There's a malicious third party. See here, this-" she pointed at the reversed Queen of Swords. "This is a vengeful woman. Royalty, possibly, or thinks she is. She brought destruction of some sort to her, to your ... your friend. The falling tower, and then...departure. In the boat."

Hordak paused, considering this. 

"Who?" he finally asked, tapping his finger on the reversed Queen of Swords. His throat sounded dry.

"I can't tell you who specifically sir, just her nature. Nasty. Incisive. Intelligent, possibly. Royalty, or assumes that station."

Hordak frowned. 

"We can see how she, um...I can ask how your friend...feels currently? Towards you?"

Her hands hovered on the deck. He did not reply but she knew when a querent wanted an answer to something they wound not admit wanting an answer to. 

She flipped a card. The Lovers.

"She...wherever she is, sir, she still..." she flipped another card. The Queen of Cups. "She still loves you."

Hordak took a quick breath. But just as quickly he looked away.

"Then why... why does she not..." his voice lowered. "Return to me?"

A woman bound before eight swords.

"She can't," Toadie said. "She's trapped in some fashion. From this I believe she would if she could." She flipped another card. The woman crying in bed with the swords. "She definitely would. But she just... can't. "

For a moment Hordak 's face was completely unguarded as he looked over the cards. Hurt. Longing. Exhaustion. But just as quickly he closed up again. Turned away.

"This is nonsense," he growled, and stood. 

"Sir?"

"Thank you for your services," he said brusquely, and made for the door. "You will not speak of this to anyone, cadet," he said warningly over his shoulder, and left just as quickly as he came.

Toadie, breathless, looked over the cards. Hordak, in love? Left behind, bereft, defeated by some ... malicious woman? But who?

Her gaze fell on the reversed Queen of Swords. When had she seen it before? That card came up a lot, specifically in Scorpia's readings. It always represented...

...Force Captain Catra.

"No no," Toadie whispered to herself, gathering up the cards. "This is beyond my pay grade."

There was a knock at the door. She looked up to see a hopeful Force Captain Scorpia, with a grey ration bar.

"I have just one more eensy weensy question?"

Toadie sighed. She really did like those ration bars.

"Bring it here," she said, and gestured to the chair.


End file.
